Onwards to Midgar

Yeah, that's right. 1997. Takes you back, don't it?

The Super Nintendo trilogy is complete, bringing us into the Playstation era. Some people wonder why Final Fantasy switched to Sony after six games with Nintendo. Well, many regard that as one of the biggest mistakes Nintendo has ever made in it's long history.

See, while Final Fantasy VII's graphics may not be impressive now, at the time, it was the most expensive video game ever made. $45 million US dollars were estimated to have been sunk into the three year project. Squaresoft went all out with an intense marketing scheme almost unheard of in video games to this day (save perhaps, Call of Duty.). The graphics were insanely impressive with Full Motion Videos (FMV's) being added to make the game even more life-like. That combined with the three years it took to make the game brought the cost up so high.

Originally, this project was intended to be released on Nintendo's newest console, then known as Project Reality, but obviously this never came to pass. Seriously, I recommend taking a look at some historical writing about the development of the N64 and Playstation, interesting stuff. I'll summarize for you. Sony and Nintendo were originally partners planning on releasing a joint console called the Playstation. There were a lot of early concepts for this, whether it was an add-on to the SNES, a whole new console or something else entirely. Anyway, Nintendo decided that their contract wasn't in their best interests anymore and decided to secretly partner up with Philips instead, going behind Sony's back to do so. This resulted in the Philips CD-i and some of the worst games in gaming history like the Unholy Triforce games and Mario Hotel. Still, Nintendo released their own console as well, deciding to forgo Sony's promised CD technology and stick with the tried and true cartridges. Sony, decided, screw Nintendo, we'll just release the console we had planned ourselves. Thus the Playstation was born.

Not only did this end up really blowing up in Nintendo's face but Square realized that their grand masterpiece, Final Fantasy VII simply wouldn't work on a cartridge-based console. After much effort to try and stay with the company that brought them up from the brink of bankruptcy, Square had no choice but to go to Sony with their new game. 

Nintendo may not like it, but Sony let's Square do what they want.

Final Fantasy VII changed a lot along with the switch to the new company. Nintendo's strict regulations on what can and cannot be in a game definitely impacted Final Fantasy in the past. Sony wasn't nearly as reserved and it showed early and frequently.

Oh Tifa, don't hide your true feelings.

Final Fantasy VII incorporated religion, death, sex, cursing, and all sorts of other things that Nintendo never would have let them mention, let alone delve into. This made for a much more adult game, allowing the franchise to grow up along with it's aging fanbase. It had been 10 years since Final Fantasy first jumped onto the scene and Squaresoft decided that their fans were finally old enough to hear cursing

Well... sort of...

All in all, what do we need to say about Final Fantasy VII. Many regard it as the greatest game of all time, even to this day. Others say it's the most over-rated game of all time. I'm determined to find out for myself how well the story of Cloud holds up 17 years later.

Game on!